


Maleficarum

by TheSphynxWalks



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Mage Rebellion (Dragon Age), Mage-Templar War (Dragon Age), Multi, Psychological Trauma, Realistic, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29428443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSphynxWalks/pseuds/TheSphynxWalks
Summary: Aphra Tully murders the Knight-Commander of Ostwick in his sleep, and steals the name of a dead girl. Scapegoated for the death of the divine and days from execution, the newly named Katarina Trevelyan takes her mark and escapes. For the mage rebellion, nothing - not her blood, her rage or mana - is ever enough.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Fenris/Female Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Fenris/Female Trevelyan (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 4





	1. Red Sky

Aphra Tully began to call herself Trevelyan on the road to the Frostbacks.

“That’s… awful.” Kai had said, but it was grief that coloured his tone. Tully nudged his side and took his hand when he opened it for her.

“There are other ways to remember the dead.” said Moran, stroking his greying, braided beard. But even he was reluctant to truly press the point.

Suzanna did not say anything, but her expression closed like a cell door, though her eyes glittered in the strong evening sunlight. She had taken to anxiously chewing the ends of her braids, and mechanically put one in her mouth.

Tully held Katarina Trevelyan’s face in her head. She had not attended their clandestine meetings in the dead of night, nor had she left notes in books for the others to find, but she had seemed like a good person. Kind. Young. Pretty. All to her detriment, as she was long dead before the Ostwick circle had received word of Kirkwall and Anders.

“We have the list, though.” Kai squeezed their joined hands. All four of them carried a copy in their underclothes. “We’ll set up that memorial, like we always said.”

“But I want to remember her specifically.” said Tully, as they crested yet another hill. The Hinterlands seemed to bubble like a stew, endlessly dipping up and down, covered in patchy forests and abandoned farmsteads. They navigated by the shape of the mountains, and contraband maps from the Circle.

“Why?” asked Suzanna, still carefully blank. Kai peered at her through his spectacles. Suzanna was the one apprentice who had elected to come with them to the Temple. She still had not passed her Harrowing, and that, Tully knew, made Kai nervous.

“You knew her better than we did,” said Aphra. “How old was she?”

“Sixteen.” Heartbreak gave an edge to her tone. Tully let go of Kai and slowed so she could walk beside her. Suzanna refused to tell them her age, but she could not have been older than Trevelyan.

“She deserved more than she got. She deserved a future. So, I want to give her one, in a way,” Tully explained, in a lowered voice. There was a gentle part of her, something she had never dared to cultivate, that Suzanna somehow brought out in her.

Suzanna nodded, and out of the corner of her eye, Tully saw Kai’s face twist with pain.

“She deserved more than she got,” Suzanna echoed, and then straightened her spine. “I think it’s a good idea.”

Moran had the longest legs, and had pulled away from the group, but had keen ears and turned back towards them. He smiled at his little gang of apostates.

“Are you keeping Aphra?” he asked.

“I’m keeping my name. But Trevelyan… I was thinking it could be a moniker.”

“Oh, like Red Jenny.” Piped up Suzanna.

“Yeah, like Red Jenny!” Agreed Tully, then exchanged baffled glances with Kai over her head. Suzanna had only been in the circle for two years before they broke out. It was painful to see a child be so much more worldly than her elders. Moran caught the look and gave a light laugh. Tully suspected that he knew as little as they did about the world beyond the walls of the Circle, but Moran was notoriously unflappable. She rolled her eyes at the back of his head.

Kai elbowed her to get her attention again.

“Trevelyan… Slayer of Templars. Saviour of Mages.” He said and yelped when she pinched him.

“Shush you.” Tully laughed. “You should be grovelling. Whose bombs destroyed our phylacteries, hmm?”

“Ooh, yes. Grovelling. You’d like that wouldn’t you?” He bit back, lecherously, and then shrieked as Tully dove for him. She chased him for a step or two, catching him by the belt and yanking him back, giggling.

“Oh, please saviour, have mercy!” His pleads dissolved into laughter as her hard little fingers poked him in the soft parts of his belly.

“Children, please.” said Moran, but he didn’t seem offended. He shook his head at Suzanna in exaggerated commiseration. She cracked a rare smile.

“Come on guys…” She tried, shifting her weight nervously, still unused to sharing in their banter. “Gross.”

This only prompted Tully and Kai to laugh harder and began accusing each other of disgusting their companions.

Their easy bickering continued as the sun faded, grief forgotten for the moment, and continued still as they set up camp. In the red glow of the evening, they chose a cliff face, a few dozen yards from a snowmelt stream, and set their wards. Suzanna stood by and memorised every arc Moran made with his staff, and then they all ventured out to forage for food. As usual, they were mostly unsuccessful, distrustful of the foreign mushrooms and forest fruit they had scrounged. Only that which they knew from the marketplaces of their youth, and the dining halls of the Circle stayed in their pockets, so they came home with a dozen wild apples and nothing more. The four of them unloaded what remained of their dried supplies into the cooking pot.

In spite of this, Kai was an astounding cook, and worked his magic touch as they gathered around the fire. The steam from the pot would fog his spectacles whenever he opened it to check.

“Why do you angle the lid towards you?” Asked Tully, after the third time he was sent fumbling for his handkerchief.

“I can’t see our food when I don’t.”

“You can’t see our food anyway.”

“We have to get better at hunting.” Mused Moran, ignoring the squabble. “We have little coin, and fewer and fewer are willing to trade with apostates.”

“Aren’t we expecting lands to come of the peace talks?” Asked Tully. “Then we may not have to hunt at all.”

“But if not…” And for once, a dark cloud crossed over Moran’s congenial expression. “And even if we do, we will likely not be given supplies with which to start our own lives. The land is the best we can hope for, recognised as the collective property of the mages.”

“Or laws to protect us, if we were to live in regular communities.” Interjected Kai. “Then we would not need to hunt. We could find work.”

Tully looked warily between them. The two could argue politics for hours, and there was little that they agreed on when it came to what mage emancipation actually looked like, other than the lack of tranquil and templars.

She had hoped they would settle their perspectives before they reached the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but there were scant few days left on the road ahead of them.

“We will see what the others have to say.” said Tully, evenly.

“What do you think, Suzanna?” Asked Moran, ignoring her, as Kai opened up the pot, fogging up his glasses for a fourth time.

Suzanna shrugged, and wrapped her cloak around her more securely.

“You should have an opinion! You’re a mage, attending the single most important summit in the history of Ferelden, Orlais and the Free Marches. Perhaps even the entire world.” Moran chided. He seemed to be gathering steam. “You will be getting a vote in the preliminary discussions for the exact details of our demands. Perhaps you will even get a chance to speak.”

Tully smiled at Kai when she thought no-one but him was looking. Not that she minded anyone seeing their intimacy, but it was the closest either of them could really come to privacy on the road. He smiled back, and together they began to serve the meal, as Moran waxed lyrical about reparations and democracy. Suzanna was nodding along with Moran’s lecture, as one would do in a class one was not completely understanding.

Moran only shut up when a bowl of stew was put in his hands.

They all tucked in, and suddenly, the only sound was the clatter of their spoons, and the song of the nightbirds and crickets.

They took turns guessing at the species that made each call, as the fire died down. Moran double and triple-checked the wards, before reassuring the group that it was safe to sleep.

They sank down onto their cloaks with their packs for pillows, eyelids heavy. Tully and Kai slept mirrored, bodies curving towards each other, though he was roughly a foot taller than her.

In the night, he reached for her, and silently, lightly, ran his hands over her side, touching the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips, her bony shoulders, her soft stomach, with reverence. Since their safety was in their numbers, they had no space for privacy. His face was soft with longing in the glow of the embers. She caught his hand and brought it to her lips. Underneath the sweat and grime, of which she shared, she could smell his warm, human scent.

She brought their joined hands out between them and rested them on the cloak.

Those hands, with their long, clumsy fingers, blunted nails, and warm, dry palms. Tully knew them as well as she knew his face, or his voice, so often did she reach for them on the road. Holding them, fingers interlaced, was almost like talking to him.

She did not need to say that she loved him, nor he to her.

From this alone, they knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Trying out this ff thingie, let me know if you're enjoying ;P  
> I'll be adding tags as I go, and potentially changing the rating. As of yet, I'm not sure what kind of story this will be, I only have a few key plot points in mind.  
> It'll be an adventure for both of us!  
> Edit: Rewrote chapter 1-2 after I got a friend to edit! Thank you x1000 Lauren, this means so much to me!


	2. The Prisoner

Aphra Tully took a boot to the stomach and began praying that she would die. She took another, crashing to the ground, and thought perhaps her prayer had been answered as she felt something pop inside her.

She did not think that this man was a templar, there were no trappings of the order upon him, no smell of lyrium on the fetid cell air. But sometimes the door would swing open, and in the torchlight that sliced its way through she saw familiar hatred on his twisted face.

He said something to her, something she did not catch over the sound of her own wretched gasping, but she felt the glob of phlegm hit her cheek and slide down it, over the bridge of her nose, and knew his meaning.

 _Monster,_ and it came on the voices of a dozen templars, each of whom she had known, and each of whom were dead.

Tully’s eyes rolled in her head, as the world blurred. She did not know where she was, she did not know how she’d come to be here.

Perhaps she’d always been down here, and everything that had happened on the road had been a dream.

She wanted to go back to that dream.

She wanted her family.

Tully’s hand began to prickle, painfully, from where it was bound behind her back. It was but a drop in the waves of pain that wracked her body, but it was unusually sharp. It burrowed into her mind, no matter how hard she tried to dredge up the dream and return to it.

The guard lurched away, and she listened to the movement of his bulk. The cell was quiet again, save for her quiet, keening sobs, his heavy breath, and the _drip-drip-drip_ of water from somewhere overhead.

She might truly die.

Why did they have her here? She was a mage, but if they were allied with the templars, then she would likely be already dead.

But… perhaps they had found out about the Knight-Commander.

Tully’s stomach rolled.

 _This is what happens when a mage is given any shred of compassion._ She imagined them saying, as they let her run from their dogs, before releasing them on her.

But if this guard was not a templar, than perhaps he was a sympathiser. Or perhaps he simply hated mages. As if there needed to be any other reason.

She heard a tearing, from far away, and a rumbling like thunder. And then, as if in response, her hand exploded with pain, like grasping a white-hot blade. She had not screamed like this since the Circle, but now she could not stop, and the guard came back over and hit her across the head.

“Shut up!”

Was this the Fade? Was this punishment from some vengeful god? She only screams louder, in agony, in rage.

 _Defiance, until the end._ That was what Moran had always said, when things looked less than bleak.

He hit her again, but it was a faint echo of the pain in her hand. Distantly, she felt warmth in her underclothes and knew that she had wet herself. Surely she could not do that in the Fade, and some distant part of herself was reassured. She could still piss her smalls. For better or for worse, she was still alive.

“Enough!” someone shouted. She did not know who. Had she said it herself?

The room drained of colour, grainy and brown. Her hand was still on fire, and it was almost too easy separate herself from it, and to let her world fold into itself.

But of course, there is no relief, not for long.

She was awake in a moment, and then someone was dragging her to her knees, which creaked.

“What happened?” a different voice was asking of the guard. They placed a torch into a sconce, and the room was illuminated by warm light. It made her nauseous.

“She killed the Divine, didn’t she?” the guard snapped, but there was naked fear in his voice.

“ _Wha-?”_ said Tully, and then stopped herself. The pain had abated as quickly as it had come on, and she gasped, suddenly able to focus.

The newcomers – there were two women, one built like a warhorse and the other like a crane – turned to her as one, as the guard slunk out the door.

“Who are you?” said the taller of the two. As the light of the torch caught the emblem on her armour, Tully flinched. A _Seeker._

“What do you know about the death of the Divine?” said the other. She was stately, middle-aged, with gingery hair and freckles. Though Tully would not normally describe a fully-grown woman so, she was also oddly pretty. Like a flower, or a girl in a painting. She was also covered in battle-grime, stood at the ready, and wore an expression of grim determination.

She gasped for a moment, gathering her breath.

“I am… Trevelyan.”

“Trevelyan?” The shorter woman – _Orleasian,_ even Tully could place that accent – frowned. “Free Marcher nobility. Interesting.”

Tully chose not to correct her. Maybe that meant something, maybe they wouldn’t kill her instantly if they thought she was someone’s important daughter.

“I-I don’t know where I am. Or what happened… to the Divine,” she offered. The Seeker gripped her wicked sword. Trevelyan very quickly decided that truth was the best policy.

“We went to the temple to support the mages… Arrived a few days before the accords were to be discussed. We went to the Temple, from our camp and then…” Tully looked up with horror. “I can’t remember anything.”

The interrogators shared a glance. Tully caught it and saw discordance. They were shaken.

“A mage sympathiser,” said the Seeker.

“Not just a sympathiser. A rebel mage,” her companion corrected. “From which circle do you hail?”

“Ostwick.” There was no point in lying. The Orleasian raised her eyebrows.

“Ostwick was a bloodbath. Your history does not support your innocence.”

Tully grimaced. There was nothing she could say to that.

“And you said ‘we,’” said the Seeker. She too had an accent, but Tully could not place it.

“What?”

“You said ‘we arrived.’ Who were you with?”

_Shit. Fuck it all to the Fade._

“I was with no one. I meant the mages, collectively.” Tully’s voice climbed an octave as she spoke.

There was silence. The two interrogators wore expressions that would’ve been pitying if they were not so disgusted.

“We do not have time for this,” said the Seeker. Her companion nodded, and both women took an arm, and hoisted Tully to her feet. The Orleasian stepped away, as graceful as a dancer.

“I am Leliana, the left hand of Divine Justinia. This is Cassandra, the right.”

Tully’s blood ran cold, but Cassandra gave her a push towards the door and there was no time to curse the Maker, because she took one step on shaking legs, and then fell. With no hands to catch herself, her knee connected solidly with the wet stone – _your piss,_ she unhelpfully remembered – and moaned, long and low. The fall had seemed to rouse her pain.

Cassandra reached for her again, and she shook her off.

“I can… I can walk,” she gasped, and got to her feet, unbalanced and stiffer than an old man. Tully was allowed to stand, before being taken by the elbow, bent at the waist, and brought into the sallow torchlight of the dungeon’s hall.

She could see the boots of a dozen guards, as she was led, stumbling, up a narrow staircase. A door was thrown open ahead of her, and sweet mountain air filled her lungs. Tully sucked in, unsure of which breath would be her last.

“This is what you must fix.” Cassandra grabbed her by the back of the head and forced it up, up, until she was facing the sky.

The world was bathed in light the colour of poison. It emanated from a crack in the sky, gaping like a wound. She recognised the mountains as the Frostbacks, but there was a gaping hole in the landscape where the Temple had one sat like a grand old empress.

Tully’s eyes filled with tears.

She was not the sort to look for divine intervention, but… what else could cause something like that? What other than a god’s divine punishment?

“What… _is_ that?” Her voice barely a whisper.

“We were hoping you could provide an answer to that question.” Leliana seemed unflustered, but her eyes were sharp. “You emerged from one of those two days ago.”

“I- What?” and then “There are more?”

“None so large.”

“But how could I have…”

“Perhaps this will help you remember,” said Cassandra, and cut the ropes binding her wrists. As soon as her hand was in view, Tully’s stomach plummeted.

A wound, just like the one in the sky.

Of course.

Of course there was to be no hope for her.

“Nothing to say?” Prompted Cassandra, impatiently. When it was clear that Tully would do nothing but try to stem her tears, she threw up her hands in frustration.

“Your trial will have to wait,” said Leliana, who was carefully watching her face.

“Of course,” whispered Tully.

“But we believe you can be of some use to us.”

“Of use…”

Leliana turned to Cassandra, who was standing impotently, a few steps away. “You must take her to Solas. And then to the summit.”

Cassandra nodded. “It will be done. You will meet us there?”

“With what’s left of the forces.” Cassandra and Leliana grasped each other’s forearms and tilted their foreheads together.

“Makerspeed.”

“To you too.”

They separated, and Cassandra gestured for Tully to follow.

“One more thing.” said Leliana, resting a light hand on her shoulder. Tully froze. “I will find out everything you know. And I can find this out by prying off your fingernails, or I can find this out by you volunteering it.” She did not bother with a ghastly smile, or a sneer. There was a wildness to her eyes that Tully had not caught before.

“I will see you shortly.” She said to Cassandra, and let her prisoner go.

As she did so, something clicked in Trevelyan’s head, and she let out a startled half-sob as she connected the Leliana before her with the Leliana of the stories. Leliana, the closest friend of the Hero.

The authors had made her sound so sweet.

“Come. We have little time.” said Cassandra.

Trevelyan had no choice but to stagger forward on shaking legs and follow.


End file.
